Guest Blogger - My contribution to silly season

“Silly season” is a phrase we hear less and less of these days. It used to refer to the dog days of summer when the whole country and its mother were on holidays and nothing essential happened. Writers of all hues, struggling heroically to justify their existence would overreach and fill column inches with anything deemed remotely newsworthy during this time. The reported number of cats getting stuck up trees seemingly being inversely proportional to the number of politicians at work during this time.

But those were the good ol’ days when the daily tsunami of information we had to contend with was more of a ripple by comparison.  As a struggling member of this exalted fraternity, it despairs me at time to see the quality of some of the standards of writing and reporting out there.  So much so, that my Victorian fainting couch is now in much need of re-upholstering. As I gamely try to infuse my readers with a sense of meaning to their existence, many of my contemporaries are meanwhile trying to dissect the latest manufactured tragedy on Love Island.

Of course, the world of wine writing is no exception. With topics that are drier than an Alsace Riesling, it’s no wonder that the industry is struggling to attract younger (i.e 30 somethings) to the world of fine wine.

So, in these days of inflated inflation and to give you more bang for your buck, I’ve condensed 3 recent third-party wine-related articles into one, easy to use digest for your moral and intellectual edification.

Think of it as watching “Big Brother” on Fast Forward so you have more time to finally finish that last 700 pages of War and Peace.

• Should you put ice in your wine?

Try it, and if you like it then happy days. You haven’t offended anyone and wine snobs are a lot less common in real life than you think

• Overcome your fear of spitting wine

Now here’s a problem you never knew you had, so go ahead and ignore. You surely didn’t need a 988 words article with instructions (link available upon request)          

• Does wine freeze?

  Yes, if you leave it long enough in your freezer.  But who in the name of God is doing that?

All this is not to mention the fact that there are countless videos and tutorials on how to correctly open wine. Strangely enough, no one seems to do it the way I do (Note to self: Great title for the autobiography)

As I bring this all to a close, I serendipitously just read an opinion piece on wine descriptors. The writer arguing that we should drop currants (both red and black) as flavours of red wine, since not everyone has had the privilege of eating currents.

Sometimes the comedy just writes itself.

- Shane Golden